Houses
by evilblackhole
Summary: Post-Avengers one-shot. Thor goes to visit Loki every day after the Battle in New York, and listens to Loki ramble on about an old house that he goes to.


No one could know. No one. Not one soul could know how much pain he was in right now.

They couldn't know that he was absolutely broken inside.

A house with walls rotted and inches of dust covering everything, but with a manicured lawn and perfect looking outside.

They wouldn't understand.

They could never understand how it feels to be hated by everyone no matter what you do. How it feels to hate yourself and what you are more than anything else in the universe. How it feels to try and try and try and get nothing but more hate in return.

Try and try until you succeed.

But he never will. He put everything he had into that one simple plan, yet they still wanted more.

They would never understand how it feels when you have nothing left to give, but the people around you never stop wanting more.

Like a bottle of water shaken for every last drop, he was completely dry and empty.

The only comfort was knowing he'd hit rock bottom.

That he had nothing more to lose.

He'd lost every illusion of a family, every dream he'd ever had, every sense of belonging. Even his sanity was a thing of the past.

He was a murderer and a monster and he would remain in his lonesome cell, outside beginning to rot just like the torn walls of his mind. He rambled in his head about things like colors and cracks and worthless details.

Every day Thor would come into the cell and just sit and listen to random details. He came in the first day, about a week after the fight in New York.

The cell door was opened and the guards were dismissed.

"Hello brother," he'd greeted the tiny, weak frame held up in a corner. His little brother did not respond, instead continuing to gaze at the wall longingly, as if he was seeing something that the Golden Prince could not.

Thor suspected he was.

The Thunderer sat down on the ground beside the former trickster and tried to see what Loki was seeing. He could not.

Thor jumped when Loki suddenly began to speak.

"I really like the house, Thor," he said. "It very pretty when the sun is shining golden down and there few clouds to block the blue of the sky. However, I saw it during a thunderstorm a little more than a year ago and it looked most gruesome. It was like the house crumbled or something, like it's perfection was accidentally misplaced for a small while as the rain fell upon it and smacked down. The sound was most horrifying Thor. The thumps as rain fell down. I tried to protected it but I could. You could have though, Thor. You could have protected the house."

Thor sat and listened, confused. But his brother didn't say anything after that. So after a small while longer, he left, only to return the next day.

It happened the same way that day.

Thor sat down next to Loki, who eventually began to speak about the house again.

"You shouldn't go inside the house, Thor. It looks very pretty on the outside, but there must be a leak somewhere. I was inside the house Thor, and you shouldn't see it. The walls are all torn down and rotting. I don't even know how it's still standing, all that support so wet and moldy. It's terrifying Thor. There's a big puddle of muddy water, and even the outside walls are very scratched up, like something is trying to get out, but can't."

And the day after, it was the same.

"The house is even worse Thor. There's definitely some type of creature inside there. It growls a lot. I saw it a little bit ago and it snapped. It'll try to bite you, Thor. You shouldn't see it. Maybe you should just demolish the house Thor. It'll kill that monster living in there and you can rebuild a new one. Build a new house Thor, get rid of this one."

It confused Thor, but he continued to come, listening to Loki's rambles and trying to imagine what this house he talks about is.

He feels like he needs to understand what the house is in order to help Loki, but he doesn't know why.

Then one day, about four months after New York, Loki says something in his rambles that strikes Thor. It's something about the sentence that just doesn't sound right.

"I took some paint off the outside of the house Thor. I saw a little bit peeling off when I visited, so I went to take it off. And you know what was under that white paint, Thor? There was blue paint. This ugly blue color. Who would paint a house such and ugly color, Thor?"

And when the God of Thunder walks out of the cell, it hits him. Loki is not talking about any house. Loki's talking about himself. The outside of the house is Loki's skin, white covering up the natural blue color of a frost giant. The house is pretty on the outside and virtually destroyed on the inside because that's how Loki is. And the beast that is trying to get out of the house is the darker side of Loki that Thor glimpsed in New York.

The day after Thor's revelation, he visits Loki once more. But instead of sitting in silence, Thor starts to talk instead.

"There's a house right next to the one you talk about, you know. It's a really big house, a mansion. It looks all nice and grand even in storms. If you go inside though, Loki, it's a mess. Everything is all burnt and one room looks like it's collapsed. And there's this thing in there, that is real nasty sometimes. You know, Loki, I bet you could fix up that place. Make it real nice. It would take a while, but maybe I could fix up the other house while you fix up the mansion. Would you like to, Loki?"

And when Thor looks over at Loki, green eyes are staring at him.

"That sounds nice, Thor," he says.

And so the two brothers do.


End file.
